1835.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



119 



to conduct it. The company have got a charter 

 which I will venture to say can never be executed 

 without several important amendments; and the.} 7 

 have got among their members personal partiali- 

 ties and preferences (very honest ones I have no 

 doubt,) which will interpose serious obstacles to 

 success. Add to this, there are some local inter- 

 ests working against them, under the plausible 

 guise of public spirit, and therefore the more like- 

 ly to injure them. These remarks, I assure you 

 sir, are not designed to discourage, even if I were 

 vain enough to believe I possessed any such pow- 

 er. But my sole motive is, a wish that the great 

 work may succeed; and take my word for it, that 

 I do not speak unadvisedly, nor without some good 

 cause in offering the foregoing cautions. 



"American Filberts." If by this term be meant 

 the foreign nut raised in the United States, I as- 

 sert, from long experience, that they will succeed 

 perfectly well in all the tide-water portion of Vir- 

 ginia — perhaps in every part of the state, and bear 

 abundantly; although the bushes are sometimes 

 killed by an insect that adheres close to the bark 

 of the bodies and limbs, and resembles small, hard 

 scales. 



The article from the "New England Farmer" 

 on "clover," is particularly recommended to the 

 consideration of disputants about the three and 

 tour-shift systems. If it be "good economy always 

 to sow clover with small grain, though it is to be 

 ploughed in the same or the next season,'''' and we 

 have this writer's authority for it — if moreover, 

 "its value to the next crop cannot be less" (as he 

 also asserts,) "than quadruple" the cost and la- 

 bor of sowing the seed — then have we a complete 

 answer — at least in my opinion — to the strongest 

 objection to the three-shift system. 



The recommendations from "the Cultivator" of 

 "root culture" and "pruning fruit trees" in June 

 and July, deserve particular attention. Without 

 the former, as well as meadows or grass lots, we 

 cannot supply our families with the requisite quan- 

 tity of milk and butter, unless at a great expense 

 of winter feeding with grain and fodder; nor can we 

 have either beef or pork of our own raising, but 

 at great extra and needless cost. In regard to 

 pruning, the writer has omitted one essential ope- 

 ration, which is, to smear all large wounds over 

 with some one or other of the various composi- 

 tions recommended by gardeners. 



Of Gov. Barbour's address, it is nothing but 

 sheer justice to say, that it calls our attention, in 

 very appropriate and forcible, language, to several 

 matters of the deepest interest to every true friend 

 of his country. What could be more patriotic 

 than the establishment of a Professorship of Ag- 

 riculture at our University? What more mortify- 

 ing and heart-sickening, than the neglect — nay, 

 the fatuitous reprobation with which it has been 

 treated? What epidemic — what pestilence has 

 ever raged in our country, that has proved more 

 destructive to the bodily health of our citizens, 

 than the "party and political and office-hunting 

 strifes," of which he speaks so feelingly, have pro- 

 ved to their moral health? Among all the evils 



growing out of this state of things, there is none, 

 I think, greater than the utter neglect, on the part 

 of our legislatures, of the vital interests of agri- 

 culture, from the establishment of our union to the 

 present day. They did once crawl so far. several 

 years ago, as to appoint a "Committee of Agri- 

 culture! " yes, verily, a "Committee of Agricul- 

 ture ! " If any doubt my word, let them search 

 the journals of the House, and they will assuredly 

 find, that this patriotic eflbrt was actually made, 

 and as far as we can judge from the circumstances 

 of the case, with "bona fide" intent, on the part 

 of the performers, that they were actually achiev- 

 ing something which would redound in no small 

 degree, to their own honor, as well as to the ben- 

 efit of their state. What has been the result? 

 Can a single man be found in our whole state 

 who has even known, or even heard of a solitary 

 act of this committee — unless it be of a negative 

 character, since their establishment ? In fact, they 

 have literally done nothing, unless it is to furnish 

 the inexplicable phenomenon of the legislature of 

 a state, whose predominant interest is agriculture — 

 a legislature, too, consisting chiefly of agriculhi- 

 ralmen — not only neglecting utterly, all agricultu- 

 ral interests, but. actually making a mockery of 

 them, by creating a committee to take care of 

 them, which has literally proved a sinecure ap- 

 pointment. God save poor old Virginia! (for 

 nothing else can,) when the maddening business 

 of president-making, forever kept alive by dema- 

 gogues and office-hunters, is constantly withhold- 

 ing her citizens from studying and providing for 

 all those vital interests by which she lives, and 

 moves, and has her being ! 



In your editorial comments on "the recent en- 

 actments of the legislature of Virginia, affecting 

 the interests of agriculture," I entirely agree, ex- 

 cept in your approval of the conclusion to which 

 the committee of agriculture arrived in regard to 

 the petitions for changing the present fence law. 

 Your own reasoning on the subject is evidently 

 founded on the erroneous supposition, that the pe- 

 titioners sought "a sudden and entire change of 

 policy."* In this I am perfectly confident you are 

 mistaken, for I myself was one of the signers, and 

 conversed often with many others on the objects 

 of the petition. Not a man — at least in my hear- 

 ing, ever said a single word in favor of a precipi- 

 tate repeal. On the contrary, all expressed an 

 opinion similar to yours, that the change which 

 they sought — like all other changes of a general 



*Our words were intended to be applied to the view 

 of the subject professed to be taken in the report of 

 the committee of agriculture, which is only applicable 

 to an entire and radical change — and not to the objects 

 of the petitioners. We are well assured, (and would 

 have so said in these remarks, it it had been deemed 

 necessary,) that the object of the advocates of a 

 change was generally such as our correspondent 

 states. Our concurrence in these views, and the deci- 

 ded opposition to the principle and policy of the pre- 

 sent law, have been sufficiently expressed. But for a 

 change of any ancient law to be beneficial or permanent, 

 it is necessary that it should be preceded by a decided 

 change of popular opinion. Ed. 



